Mumbai:
The Adarsh Society scam has turned into a 31-storey triple threat - it forced the resignation of Ashok Chavan as Maharashtra's Chief Minister; it has got the Army investigating officers who sanctioned permission for the building in a high-security area; and now, it's bureaucrats that are feeling the heat.
Twelve babus - each of who owns a flat directly or indirectly through a relative in Adarsh Society - have been asked by the Maharashtra government to explain their role in a process that saw rules being circumvented so that politicians, bureaucrats and defence officers could corner flats in a building intended for war widows and defence veterans.
The 12 bureaucrats have been asked to explain whether they informed the government of their own or their families' flats in the high-rise. They also have to explain how they paid for these flats and whether their purchases were declared to tax authorities.
Most of these bureaucrats - like Jairaj Phatak, former Municipal Commissioner and Ramanand Tiwari, former Urban Development Secretary - signed off on documents that allowed illegal environment clearances, illegal expansion, and flats for civilians. The flats they got are being viewed as a reward for their collusion.
They are also likely to be investigated by the CBI.